You should compare the time needed to farm the rare mats for physical playstyle and magical playstyle by using the best possible farming method. Why? Because when local markets and local banking gets implemented, traders will bring these mat (or already bonus crafted gear) to you for your convenience! Hell, they'll even feed your cat!

Marc said that they want to make PvE using melee in heavy armor more viable, because it would be less boring than chipping out HP piece by piece while standing at the safe distance. It would be also more newbie friendly - new players do not expect that some mobs hit like a truck, and some use the damage that bypasses the armor.

Allowing such fast, but high-risk PvE style would solve many more problems besides the need to switch to mage build for PvE.

I just dont know how you can make really big mobs solo meleeable with out gimping them completely, they just have way more hit points than a player so you are always going to need to go in to dps and then out to heal and stat

Mycke Soulslayer - Supreme General: Rastalfarian - An all Alfar clan of all play styles in all time zones, welcoming new and vet players alike.

honestly, there are very few mobs that you can farm as melee. alot you can farm with archery but most farming needs to be done with magic.

for example, menhir custodian and stoneguard. what the f#*k? they hit like a truck and swing 3 times as fast as a player so the only way you can farm them is at range.

shadow knights, seriously. there is no way an average player with average gear can do these things. and don't say bring a healer cause then they are level 2 and even harder lol.

needs to be some major toning down on the melee of most mobs. they swing way too fast, too fast to even parry, and hit way harder. i feel your pain OP in that i too do not want to be forced into a mage playstyle just to have pve fun and farm mats for stuff i want.

on a side not, i'm drunk as hell and about to go out to get drunker and maybe laid. that acutally has nothing to do with the post, i'm just bragging.

You don't wanna hear it but bring a healer. The benefit you get from having permanent cross heals to the back and buffs as needed strongly outweigh the jump from level 1 to 2. Haven't played with the new AI but before then we were 2-man dagger farming golems and all kind of shit at ridiculous rates when people were complaining about most mobs only being possible with magic, probably 8/10 mobs we were doing with melee, because its just the most efficient, particularly if you use nice transmutes and active parrying where it's beneficial.

Also I was solo melee farming menhirs when I was a newbie, never had to pull off more than once, and I think that was without armor traits - have they changed significantly with the AI patch?

TimothyJB NewDawnSupreme General of Seek and Destroy, previously of The Crimson BrotherhoodDedicated clan lag switcher and founder of the SaltyBitch™ clubDarkfall will never succeed without local banking kangaroo mounts

Problem with Melee farming is - people want to farm using their prefered/leveled weapon, yet in PvE Daggers are IMBA

Well I've always just looked at that as the difference between farming and grinding, if you're looking for the best skill gains you're not going to be the most efficient on loot and I'm OK with that. With that said GS farming with a haste/heal bot still demolishes a lot of magic farming efficiency - though again if it's not possible or something now with AI changes I take it back...

TimothyJB NewDawnSupreme General of Seek and Destroy, previously of The Crimson BrotherhoodDedicated clan lag switcher and founder of the SaltyBitch™ clubDarkfall will never succeed without local banking kangaroo mounts

Even if you farm in physical/heavy gear you will be flopped like a bitch at the spawns if population picks up. Ub3rgames think its nothing wrong with heavy vs mage, so best option is to just forget about that playstyle and whoever want to play heavy can shine in sieges, bigger groups etc.. but need to roll in light gear for everything else.

This is the definition of balance in baguetteland. The only hope we have is for Ub3rgames to have a drug free day.

There are alot of clowns that now will tell us that we can do this and this and all fine. Clowns that cant tell the difference between "can", "can't" and "can, but won't". Example "yes you can jump walls, you just need to pull of a 4 spell sequence perfectly, so its nothing wrong here" or "dude if your Haylando you can be effective in melee, but the counterpart only need to be a mongoloid Stevie Wonder".

BTW we have one in this thread, dude its awesome, just bring a pocket healer, all fine and balanced...

However as a contribution to the topic, they might want to start looking into the transmutes again, but I dont think any physical playstyle is on their radar in the forseeable future.

In before they claim we got sidestep and active blocking, which isnt a boost at all and the fact is that in general melee/archery has had major nerfs compared to DF2012.

Shield protection boost (boost to any playstyle) and seize is good though. Next up is the durability loss on melee farming vs mage farming LOL

Can't heavies still get over a wall with nothing but a shrapnel (or maybe an unburden before it, cant remember), definitely a 4 spell sequence.

And if you actually think melee/archery is overall nerfed you're just delusional. Not gonna say it's balanced, but that's just crazy.

TimothyJB NewDawnSupreme General of Seek and Destroy, previously of The Crimson BrotherhoodDedicated clan lag switcher and founder of the SaltyBitch™ clubDarkfall will never succeed without local banking kangaroo mounts

Here's the issue's with melee farming higher tier monsters.1, their hp pool is so much larger you need to pull out and reset quite a bit.2, most high end monsters sprint faster than you do, so...you need some time to stop taking damage.3, any form of spawn scaling rapes you even harder, and its not efficient to all support the one guy who's doing melee vs just spamming ranged attacks.

Now ofcourse below level 5 or something you can probably make it work...but compared to pre duration nerfs its just way more work. Couple to this the increase in damage dealt by monsters with the attack speed increases and the quicker switching to melee and you suddenly realise you are a huge burden to your group for no real reason anymore.

Going to bring this suggestion again, give wards (and debuffs) increased duration for PvE.A debuff gains x seconds per attack which makes use of the debuff. (up to a cap duration, or not...i dont really care)Wards gain 1 hit per attack (which is like 1 second?). (up to a cap duration, mostly to prevent some try hard dagger farming while hasted for hours on end to have perma haste. Make it 40 seconds max, it just means you dont have to constantly reward him)(same for shield wards and iron skin, stat wards. Have them get 1 second per monster hit, up to 40 second cap).

This way, a support can ward somebody before he runs in, debuff a target and heal people without having to constantly redo things he did 20 seconds prior because the effect already wore off.

In any case, melee is fucked if a spawn is scaled to level 30+...So im not sure how they want to get around that problem, but....